How do you use your Surface? If you're one of the many tablet users who just couldn't say no to the power and broad PC compatibility of the Surface Pro 3, you've no doubt spent a lot of time working with the tablet propped-up in one of its many integrated kickstand settings. From nearly flat to upright like a laptop, the kickstand offers plenty of flexibility – so long as you're interested in using the Surface in landscape orientation. What if portrait view would be more conducive towards your work? Back at its Build conference, Microsoft teased a new VESA-mount dock it cooked up for the ...

The last time we saw a Nokia Lumia on Verizon was last year with the Lumia Icon. That device has been discontinued and Verizon's Lumia Windows Phone selection has been seriously lacking. Now Verizon has finally gotten a new Lumia Windows Phone in their line up and it's the Lumia 735. Of course, this device is kind of old too. The original version was unvieled in Berlin in September of 2014. 9 months later, the Verizon version of the Lumia 735 is now available. The Lumia 735 is kind of a mid-range phone by last year's standards, but in 2015 it still has a few nice things going for it. Last ...

Hound is SoundHound's new voice assistant to compete with the likes of Google Now, Siri, and Cortana. It, like the others, can launch apps, run search queries, identify songs, and more, but one thing that's caught wide attention for this service is its ability to process complex, multi-part queries in a manner similar to Wolfram Alpha. Questions like "What is the population and capital for Japan and China?" work without a hitch, and very quickly at that. But rarely will most people ask a voice assistant such complicated questions. Instead, most people use these services for quick searches ...

If you’ve been yearning for Nokia hardware since its Microsoft acquisition, then you might finally be in luck — at least, sort of. The company’s CEO Rajeev Suri recently commented on the possibility of reentering the phone space. To simplify a complicated response, Nokia has interest in designing phones to then license to other companies, similar to what happened with its N1 tablet. In other words, while they may ot be manufactured by Nokia, you’ll at least have the novelty and peace of mind of knowing that Nokia designed your phone again. It’s a lot of technical mumbo jumbo, but ...

This year promises to be one of the most important for Microsoft in a while, as the company gets ready to release its new Windows 10 platform in just a few more weeks. That launch is sure to set the stage for the rest of the year's developments, but what then? How can Microsoft take that momentum and put it to best advantage in 2016? In a newly leaked internal email, CEO Satya Nadella lays out Microsoft's mission statement going forward. Officially, Microsoft's mission is to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.” To do this, the company will put ...

Until Microsoft "soon" decides on the next Windows 10 Mobile release, Insiders can continue playing with build 10136, that's become available last week. Whether the new build that will arrive will be 10149, or a more recent one, is yet unknown, but this particular 10149 version, that's been allegedly leaked, brings some changes to the table. For starters, as you can see in the image above, the Edge address bar (Edge is the name of the now rebranded browser) has been moved to the bottom. Unlike on Android and iOS, where you have to reach all the way up to the address bar, Edge will make it ...

A new firmware update has been released by Microsoft today for its two flagship tablet products, the Surface 3 and Pro 3. There aren't many new features involved, but these are meaty firmware updates nonetheless, and will be crucial for the devices moving into the future. The changelogs for both updates are below. The key takeaways for the Surface 3 update are driver updates; this should improve stability and performance across the board. In the case of the Pro 3, there are driver updates as well, as well as a UEFI update adding support for new Windows 10 features. With the launch of the ...

Famous tipster @evleaks, even though retired, has spent his last couple of tweets telling us about the future of the Microsoft Lumia lineup, and even some past that never happened. On one hand he tells us that the Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet that some loved and others hated, was actually just one of five tablets in the works under codenames Illusionist, Mercury, Pine, and Vegas/Atlas. Still these are not the only codenames he revealed today, as we also learn of some Microsoft Lumia future. Evan Blass has just revealed that in addition to the Lumias under codename Cityman and Talkman, there are ...

We've struggled to love the Microsoft Band because of its rudimentary design, and it's uncomfortable fit, but that doesn't mean that this isn't a powerful wearable. On the contrary, the Microsoft Band has proven to be a very powerful product over the last couple of months, and this only expands as developers make use of it. Today we learn of a new game that it will be able to track in a far better way than the average tracker. Microsoft has just partnered with TaylorMade in order to add golfing support for both he Microsoft Band and also the Health application. You first tell the app what ...

Microsoft has spent the last year reinventing itself since Steve Ballmer stepped down, and Satya Nadella became the company's CEO. The changes have involved more than just a change in leadership, but also a very corporate different strategy. Change is sadly not popular with some of the people that stay, or in some cases, some people just don't fit the new mold, and that's what seems to have happened today. Microsoft has just announced that Stephen Elop is leaving Microsoft, and joining him in this departure is also Mark Penn, Kirill Tatarinov and Eric Rudder. Stephen Elop is a very ...

Over at Windows Central, Daniel Rubino has found that when the new Windows 10 Mobile build 10136 is installed on a phone with a screen size larger than 5 inches, a new feature is enabled. The new feature is very similar to Apple's reachability option on the iPhone 6 Plus which allows you to reposition the contents of the screen in the lower half of the screen so that you can reach poorly-placed buttons with one hand while holding the phone. While on the iPhone, the feature is activated by double tapping the home button, on Windows 10 Mobile, you have to hold down the Windows key at the ...

How many times is it that you wished your smartphone was thicker, but had better battery life? That's because "thin" is often achieved by trimming down the battery, but other key components contribute to the measurements. Just in case you thought devices nowadays weren't thin enough, even thinner smartphones might be on their way. Sharp is happy to announce that it started mass production of new in-cell type touch displays. This technology "has the touch sensor function built into the LCD", instead having the touch sensor attached to the LCD, like on most displays used in smartphones ...

We're three months away from it being a year since Microsoft announced the Lumia 735 in IFA 2014, and ever since then, we've been hearing rumors of a US launch for the product. Only a few days after it was announced, we heard that Verizon would pick it up for the US market, and well, the rest is history. We doubt you're still waiting for it to arrive, but if you are, we've got more rumors. Reports claim that the Lumia 735 will launch online for Verizon on June 18, and then on all retail channels for the carrier on July 9. The black option will be available with a bevy of removable cover ...

Two of Microsoft's hottest new devices could be making their way to the lineups of one of the US's largest nationwide carriers very soon. The Lumia 640, announced at Mobile World Congress this year to build on Microsoft's affordable smartphone success, is coming to T-Mobile today. And if new information from WinSuperSite is to be believed, both the Lumia 640 and Lumia 640 XL are also going to be making their way to AT&T by the end of the month. Allegedly, WinSuperSite obtained the information in the following quotation at a Microsoft-sponsored event from a representative of the ...

Microsoft has been working hard at keeping its Windows 10 Mobile updates coming to members of the Microsoft Insider program. We've kept a close eye on build 10136 for the last couple of days, but it seems it's taken Redmond longer than usual in pushing to beta testers. Today we learn that the build is pretty much ready for a launch, but at a risk. Gabriel Aul has been active on Twitter today asking users for feedback on what should be the best route to take for the launch of build 10136. It seems the build is ready, but there is a bug upgrading from version 10080 that could hold the update ...

iOS always gets to bask in the spotlight of attention from mobile consumers, and that’s especially true during device launches and WWDC, the latter of which we just saw last week. But there’s a lot more than just iPhones and iPads out there, and Windows Phone is still a booming platform with a bevy of great and unique features. iPhones are great, just like Android phones and Windows Phones are great, but there are a few things that the people of Cupertino could learn from Windows Phone. A cleaner, more organized interface Consumers seem to have a very straightforward, ...

If you're doing the math, then yes, you're only a few weeks away from Windows 10 going public in its final build. We assume that this means all version of Windows 10, even though there is far more maturity in builds being tested for the desktop than for mobile. We've covered a significant amount of leaks that focus on what to expect for the next build to come, but today we get some timing as well. Microsoft Windows 10 Mobile build 10134 has been leaked substantially the last couple of weeks, and today we learn that a build 10136 is the one that will make the final cut. Sources claim that ...

The world of virtual reality is finally seeing the arrival of hardware advanced enough to make truly immersive experiences a reality. That's bringing us efforts like the HTC Vive, set to go up for sale before the end of the year. But the granddaddy of them all is Oculus VR's Oculus Rift, long available as developer hardware but seemingly never quite ready to take the retail plunge. That's all changing in 2016, and today Oculus shared just how that commercial deployment is set to happen, as it revealed the final Oculus Rift hardware. The Oculus Rift headset is set to go up for sale in Q1 ...

Windows Phone Facebook integration was one of the main selling points of the platform (phones running the Microsoft mobile OS), and the feature was also available on Windows, as well as several other offerings from Microsoft. According to a recently published support document, Windows Phone Facebook integration (as well as other Facebook connect features) will no longer be available. "Facebook has made an update to their Graph API that will impact Microsoft apps and services. Facebook’s Graph API is the tool that we use to connect your Microsoft account to Facebook. It brings contact ...

A little more than a week from now, on June 17, 2015, T-Mobile will be launching the Lumia 640. If you haven't already, go ahead and read our review so you'll know whether you should be excited about this, or not. The information that next Wednesday, the T-Mobile Lumia 640 will become available comes from two different unknown sources that Windows Central is quoting in this report. By the looks of it, you won't be able to grab a T-Mobile Lumia 640 from the shelves; the carrier is apparently opting for a "Ship to (direct fulfillment)" model, which implies Magenta ordering it for you and ...

If you follow me on Twitter, you might’ve seen that I recently had my phone stolen for the first time. It was bound to happen after seven years of smartphone ownership without a hitch, and it certainly wasn’t in the way I would’ve expected it to eventually happen. Long story short, I was working with a customer at my day job, and the son of another customer who had been waiting in line had swiped my phone from off of the charger on our consultation desk while I wasn’t looking. Well. I can cross "phone stolen" from my list of firsts. — Hayato Huseman (@hayatohuseman) May 23, 2015 ...

Ever since Microsoft bought Nokia's mobile device division, the Lumia line of Windows Phones has been focusing on affordable smartphones that still bring a lot of good-enough features with less compromises. This is probably a good strategy, since I'm sure a huge percentage of the population doesn't need an $800 iPhone for texting, Facbook, and Instagram. The Lumia 640, is one of the first Lumia smartphones to finally include Microsoft's own branding, and it removes many of the compromises you might have to endure on other low-priced budget smartphones like the Lumia 5XX series and even the ...

Wondering what's new in Windows Phone 8.1 update 2? We've got just the changelog for you to show you all that's changed in the second major (sorta) update to Windows Phone 8.1. Only certain phones are seeing the update, but it does indeed bring a couple notable changes that one could admire. We've made available below Microsoft's official changelog. Additionally, Windows Central notes a few changes of its own after a good amount of time testing the new software – there's MKV support for videos, a Reset Protection feature, there's now an "All Apps" button at the bottom of the Start ...

Even though the remainder of the true Nokia from Finland has claimed that it might sell its HERE Maps services, it hasn't stopped the company from fully supporting the service in every way. We've seen the service expand to other platforms lately, and it keeps adding more and more features with each update. Today the company has announced a new major update to the platform, but the amount of changes is more in context than in a level of service improvements. Nokia claims that it has just pushed "millions" of changes to its HERE Maps apps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, but these changes ...

Page through the spec listings for a modern smartphone that supports microSD expansion, and you might find yourself doing a double-take. “Supports microSD cards up to 2TB in size? My phone's going to have more storage than it knows what to do with!” Problem is, that 2TB figure is a theoretical maximum; the standards your phone supports allow it to talk to microSD cards up to that limit, but no one's even close to making anything that big. Instead, we're stuck with 32GB, 64GB, or even the occasional 128GB card. Boundaries are meant to pushed, though, and at Computex in Taipei one ...